Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - The Picture of Dorian Gray

This was a good read (you know, apart from the random misogyny and antisemitism that came with the time and do not really add to the story either) and chapter 11. I don't know but chapter 11 was just a lot of rambling in an otherwise exciting book in my opinion. Also, I see how someone would likely dislike this book if deeply flawed characters are not their thing - for one it kind builds the main plot and also there's probably a bit too much Lord Henry in there.

Content Warnings

trintrin's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

This quote perfectly sums up the exquisitely tragic story that is Dorian Gray's.

The first classic that I have ever voluntarily fully read and oh boy did I love it. The descriptions just seemed so poetic and the writing is so fluid. It almost felt magical and whimsical reading some of those passages despite this book not having any magic at all. My only complaint is no normal person is gonna be spewing formal poetry for two whole pages in a normal conversation lol. I thought this writing style would be hard to read but it flowed really well for the most part. The only section I was actually bored by was in chapter 11 when we get pages long descriptions of Dorian's various new hobbies and interests. I found it too much like an info dump-y Wikipedia copy paste or something. That alone made me put the book down for nearly a week before continuing whoops.

The characters are amazing imo. Dorian started out pretty boring but I started loving him more and more as his character progressed. Lord Henry is... interesting, to say the least. I admire him for the confidence he has in his views and I'm also also scared of finding someone like him irl. Poor Basil got caught up in this mess I feel bad for him. Sybil Vane and her family were more or less there only to further the plot but I didn't particularly mind that. But my biggest question is, how do these people socialise so much? I feel exhausted reading about all the operas and dinners and clubs they go to like everyday. My introverted self could never.

I didn't know what I was thinking the ending would be but it wasn't what I expected. I knew this was going to be tragic but the abruptness of it all it still sort of took me by surprise.

Overall, an amazing book definitely worth the read.

Content Warnings

christinewonder's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It opened my eyes to the concept that we would rather believe “beautiful” people than any other person. Also, it is still relevant if one looks at social media. A masterpiece and a must-read for everybody.

Content Warnings

_saphyr_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

visorforavisor's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

As a quick note beforehand: I acknowledge and do not approve of Wilde’s use of negative stereotypes of Jewish people in this.

The last time I read this, I knew next to nothing about the meaning of it in the context of the intense homophobia of the late-19th-century UK. But, reading it now, I realise how brave Oscar Wilde was to publish this. I quote from the original, uncensored version, Basil speaking to Dorian:

“It is quite true that I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman. […] I quite admit that I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly. I was jealous of everyone to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. […] Of course I never let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible. You would not have understood it. […] But, as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. There was love in every line, and in every touch there was passion. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped.”

And this is just one of the most blatant examples, one that had to be cut. There aren’t “homoerotic undertones” in Dorian. There is no “gay subtext”. It’s. About homosexuality. The whole book is about homosexuality. Even that bit at the start, about judging a book on its morality vs judging it on how well-written it is; what, it’s a coincidence that everyone ignored a beautifully written book because its gayness went against their morals?

All three couples possible between Dorian, Basil, and Henry are implied to have existed. Dorian almost certainly had a beyond-platonic relationship with Alan, who he later blackmails (a crime that comes later than murder, even as we know that his crimes become worse and worse… absolutely nothing [/s] to do with blackmail being the primary crime against gay men in this era, especially since we aren’t told what the blackmail material is, but we are told about Alan and Dorian’s “intimacy”). Dorian is repeatedly compared to male favourites of kings. He goes to a costume ball, in drag, dressed as a male favourite of Henri III of France. (Was it just chance that this is a similar name to Henry Wotton’s? Probably not.) Dorian owns homes, in which he and Henry holiday together, in known homosexual hotspots. He also attends brothels in an area known for its brothels having men for hire.

Dorian, thinking about how Basil’s affection and good nature could have saved him:

The love that he bore him — for it was really love — had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was such love as Michael Angelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him.

All the men named had homosexual relationships, and Wilde knew this. Compare with Wilde’s speech, in court, for the crime of homosexuality:

“The love that dare not speak its name” in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as “the love that dare not speak its name”, and on that account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope, and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.

(It’s worth noting that while Wilde does emphasise the younger and older men being in a relationship together, he’s not talking about paedophilia: Dorian is 20 when the story begins, and Henry 30. Basil’s age is unknown but he and Henry are simoultaneously called “young”, so he is probably between the two in age.)

This speech of Wilde’s, pretty much, sums up the relationship of Dorian with the combination of Basil and Henry. In the first chapters, Dorian does have “all the joy, hope, and glamour of life before him”. References to some of the same men not only continue to show parallels between these passages but make it absolutely undebatable that Wilde was saying Basil was gay. The similar use of the words “noble” and “intellectual”, all of it.

Dorian Gray is arguing on behalf of homosexuality.

Content Warnings

sinaprst's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I never thought that I would like this this much, but I am literally as obsessed as Dorian is with his own portrait.
I would literally sell my soul to be able to read this for the first time again.
Though at times it was a bit difficult to get through, it was overall just an incredible read and I now want to read everything else Oscar Wilde has ever written.
Lastly all I have to say is:
- Basil deserved better
- Harry is a piece of shit
- and I wish it could've been gayer

Content Warnings

studydniowka's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Please end this modernism obsession… Can we move on?

Content Warnings

More...